My dad died on the fourteenth of March this year. It was cancer: malignant melanoma. I've been trying to write out something to tell you all about what a fantastic person he was, but I want so much to write it well that I can't think how to get the words right. He was funny, he was intellectual and full of ideas, he was caring, generous, gentle and incredibly talented, he always tried his hardest to be a good dad to me. He always helped people. He was great to talk to and laugh with - everyone talks about the conversations they had with him, though we can barely remember what we talked about, except for 'everything'. We were incredibly lucky to have had him with us. I used to lie in bed and listen to him playing his jazz chords on the piano. He used to call me into the kitchen when he was cooking to help him, but all he really wanted was to chat with me. We hunched over the cooker cracking and juggling hot chestnuts we cooked in the frying pan. That's all you have left; snatches of memory. Death isn't about bodies or any dark symbolic crap, all it is is disappearence. A while afterwards, I can't remember how long, I sat up here with this laptop and watched the one Billy Connolly show on the DVD I bought him for Christmas that we'd not seen. You do things alone that you would have done together, and think of them.

Yesterday I wished that I could reach out to him and say, hey, it's going to be alright - me and mum are learning how to support each other. Today was a bad day and I haven't been so sure. Who knows what tomorrow will be like. Tomorrow is the first day of the new semester and I'm worried about uni. People have said 'I don't know how you cope' but all it is is you just keep going.